The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold

Sam Knight’s book recounts the story of John Barker, a British psychiatrist whose interest in clairvoyance led him to establish a Premonitions Bureau with Evening Standard science editor Peter Fairley. Their project followed reports that people had foreseen the 1966 Aberfan disaster and invited the public to submit warnings of future catastrophes.

Among the Bureau’s correspondents were Kathleen Lorna Middleton and Alan Hencher, whose reported forewarnings included plane crashes, deaths and a railway accident. Knight places these accounts alongside Barker’s psychiatric work, the 1960s press, psychical research and the problem of distinguishing genuine foreknowledge from coincidence or hindsight. The narrative ends with Barker’s death from an aneurysm in 1968.